Wigan Warriors 30 Castleford Tigers 22 - James Clare gets all-clear as Cas let another Super League lead slip from grasp

The winger suffered damage to his neck and was treated at length early in the second half before being carried from the field on a stretcher. He was taken to hospital where x-rays cleared him of any broken bones and was home yesterday.

Morgan Smithies, one of Wigan’s substitute forwards, was sin-binned following the challenge on Clare, which Tigers coach Daryl Powell described as a “crusher tackle”.

The Castleford boss said: “It is a really, really poor tackle, the way he puts himself into that position, Morgan Smithies and he just went on with it.

“There was another one early on that got missed by the referee.

“They are disappointing tackles; we are trying to get them out of the game because you see the impact on a player when that happens.

“Ten minutes in the bin is pretty light punishment when you lose a player and you have to adjust your team like we did, but that’s the way it is.”

There were also accusations after the game of a butt by Smithies on Grant Millington, and Powell said: “There was a fair bit missed, but you come to expect that.”

Following Clare’s injury Oliver Holmes switched from the pack into the centres and Michael Shenton moved on to a wing, which clearly disrupted Tigers.

They scored an equalising try almost immediately, but didn’t settle after that and Wigan pulled 14 points clear before a late Castleford try made the scoreline more respectable.

At Warrington’s HJ Stadium, Tigers got off to a strong start, going 12-0 ahead through tries by full-back Gareth O’Brien - who looks like being a very good acquisition - and Nathan Massey, both of which Danny Richardson converted.

But Wigan replied with back-to-back tries for Joe Burgess and Sam Powell and took a 14-12 interval lead when Ben Flower went over.

Derrell Olpherts levelled, only for a Zak Hardaker penalty - one of his five goals - to edge the Betfred Super League leaders back in front.

Liam Farrell and Joe Bullock increased their advantage before Shenton grabbed a try, following a mistake by Hardaker and Richardson converted to complete the scoring.

Tigers had wasted a 14-0 lead against Catalans Dragons in their first game after the Covid lay-off but, following the 10-0 defeat by St Helens, O’Brien’s try produced their first points in 161 minutes of rugby.

That was not much consolation for Powell.

He admitted: “I thought we were poor.

“There were some big turning points - we were 12-0 up and we made an error from the kick-off set and they scored a try.

“If you look at the tries they scored, they were pretty much all barge-overs.

“I don’t think there’s that much difference between Wigan and us, I just thought we were way off.

“It was a disappointing effort, we deserved to get beat - it wasn’t good enough.”

Wigan Warriors: French, Marshall, Hardaker, Bibby, J Burgess, Leuluai, Hastings, Bullock, Powell, Byrne, Isa, Farrell, Harvard. Subs G Burgess, H Smith, Flower, Smithies.

Castleford Tigers: O’Brien, Olpherts, Foster, Shenton, Clare, Trueman, Richardson, Watts, McShane, Griffin, Holmes, McMeeken, Massey. Subs Millington, Milner, Sene-Lefao, D Smith.

Referee: James Child (Dewsbury).